What is Tickrate?

Note that any adjustments discussed here will be automatically carried out by us for users who rent a higher tickrate server. This article is intended for those who wish to know what tickrate is, or adjust it on their own servers not rented from us.

The tickrate of a game server is a measure of how often a server will update the game world. For example, a server running with a tickrate of 33 will update the world 33 times a second. This may seem like a lot, but in precision games such as Counter Strike Source a higher tickrate is essential. The downside of tickrate however is that more bandwidth and CPU is consumed by the server, if you want a smooth server though a higher tickrate is essential. Tickrate can be anything from 33 to 100, however the most common values are:

• 33 Tick
• 66 Tick
• 100 Tick

Most Source games run at 33 or 66 tick by default. Counter Strike Source for example runs at a default of 33 tick.

It is possible to change the tickrate on all Source-based games (except Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead 1, 2 and certain mods), simply by adding -tickrate XX onto your command line for starting the server (Where XX is your desired tickrate). This is the only place it can be changed! It cannot be changed by a console command or any other method except command line alteration! If you rent a server, chances are you will not be able to change the tickrate yourself unless you pay the host extra (this is because a higher tickrate uses more resources than a lower tickrate, and hence it costs the host more to host a higher tickrate server).

It is often considered a world of difference between 33 and 66 tick, with the effects of 100 tick barely noticeable over a tickrate of 66. In addition, 100 tick is limited to around 16 player servers otherwise problems can occur.

You can, but should not, set tickrate above 100. Valve themselves have said that a tickrate over 100 will cause problems, so don't do it! 100 tick is perfectly fine anyway.

If you just adjust the tickrate, you will not gain the full benefits of that adjustment. In addition to changing the tickrate, you also need to increase the Server FPS. Server FPS is similar to Client FPS - it is the number of times per second that the server/client checks for inputs, send outputs etc. If you adjust the tickrate, the following values need to be adjusted accordingly (these values should go into your server.cfg)

• 66 Tick - fps_max 300
• 100 Tick - fps_max 600

There is absolutely no advantage to anything higher than 600 FPS, it just uses more resources for no notable change.

If you adjust the fps_max value, be aware that on Windows, this will have no effect. By default, Windows runs a low resolution timer, so Server FPS will not go above 100. To rectify this, you should run a program that forces Windows to use the High Resolution Timer. Simply leaving Windows Media Player open will achieve this, Windows Server 2008 and higher automatically use a high resolution timer. Under Linux, you will need to recompile the kernel to adjust the tickrate. For 66 and 100 Tick servers, the server rates (the amount of data that the server sends the client) need to be adjusted as follows (these values should also go into your server.cfg)

• sv_maxrate 20000
• sv_maxupdaterate 120

After doing all this, your server should be running successfully at a higher tickrate, allowing you to have a much smoother, accurate game experience. If you rent a 66 or 100 Tick server from us, we will automatically do all of this extra configuration for you.